1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid cartridge which is suitable for an ink cartridge to be attached to an ink jet printer, for example, and a liquid ejection apparatus to which the liquid cartridge is attachable. Also, the present invention further related to a liquid ejection control method in an apparatus using the liquid cartridge.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an ink cartridge to be attached to an ink jet printer, there has variously been proposed a liquid cartridge comprising, in a container body to be attached to a printer (an apparatus), a liquid chamber for accommodating an ink liquid (a liquid), a liquid supply port to be connected to an ink liquid receiving portion (a liquid receiving portion) on the printer side, a liquid passage for causing the liquid chamber to communicate with the liquid supply port, and an ink end sensor (a liquid end sensor) provided in the middle of the liquid passage and serving to detect the presence of an ink in the liquid chamber (for example, see JP-A-2003-39694 Publication).
On the printer side where such an ink cartridge is used, for example, there is provided a control circuit for monitoring an output of an ink end sensor such as an optical sensor for optically detecting the presence of an ink or an electrical sensor for electrically detecting the presence of the ink and giving a notice of an exchange time for the ink cartridge.
When the ink end sensor provided on the ink cartridge usually detects the absence of the ink liquid, however, the ink liquid remains in the liquid passage between the ink end sensor and the liquid supply port. For this reason, even if the absence of the ink liquid is detected by the ink end sensor, it is wasteful to instantly exchange the ink cartridge since the remaining ink is discarded in a non-use state.
In a related art ink cartridge, however, an amount of an ink remaining in the liquid passage between the ink end sensor and the liquid supply port is not grasped quantitatively. When the absence of the ink liquid is detected by the ink end sensor and is then used carelessly and continuously, therefore, there is a possibility that the ink might run out in the middle of a page to waste a paper or the remaining ink might be used up to damage a printing head due to idle ejecting of the printing head.